William Shatner strikes back at Carrie Fisher's Star Trek attack

First, William Shatner declared Star Trek superior to Star Wars and said he'd like to have a lost weekend with Princess Leia. Then Leia herself, Carrie Fisher, fired back, championing Star Wars and accusing Shatner of a secret desire to wear her iconic gold bikini.

Now the Shat has fired back with a new set of verbal barbs, among them digs at George Lucas' special effects and Fisher's "costume-off" challenge.

The two-minute video, titled "Dearest Carrie...," hit the net Monday from Shatner's own YouTube account. It's a very Shatneresque (by which we mean gloriously over-the-top), tongue-in-cheek reply to Fisher's own hilarious retorts, particularly when Shatner discusses his desire to don the Darth Vader costume:

"And yes, I did beg, and grovel, and was at the producer's feet in order to play Darth Vader. They got this big, heavy-voiced guy. I was gonna play Darth Vader [high voice] high like this. 'I am your father.' It would have been sensational. But no, they wouldn't have me."

Then he simultaneously responds to Fisher and disses George Lucas as he discusses the claim that Star Wars had vastly superior special effects. As he talks, a montage of images—Jar Jar, Special Edition Jabba and a mistake in a shot with a TIE Fighter—flashes across the screen, highlighting the special-effects miscues of Lucas' franchise:

"Talking about special effects, it's true: Star Wars did have the best special effects. In fact, everything about Star Wars was special effects. It was great special effects. I envy the special effects. The only thing is you guys forgot about story. Story, and character and plot development, those kinda basic things."

But then things get just a little nasty when Shatner tackles Fisher's challenge of a "costume-off" in which she would don her Return of the Jedi bikini and Shatner would on his Original Series captain's uniform:

"I don't know whether we're ready for you in a bikini. My costume was made of stretch material, so there wouldn't be any difficulty in giving it a little push here and there for me to go to my original wardrobe. But you in a bikini, now, needs a little more than push and pull. It needs a lot of uplift."

Ouch. We can only hope that Fisher is already crafting a suitably venomous response. This little Franchise War is too much fun.